What is the main haplogroup of Cucuteni-Trypillian (Tripolye) culture?

Welcome to the EUPEDIA FORUM.

You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members (PM), respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today!

If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact us.

If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

I think differences between WHG, SHG and EHG could be the result of their origins from three distinct Ice Age refugia. The old concept of Ice Ace Refugia was wrong when it comes to association of certain haplogroups with certain refugia (see the map below) - especially when it comes to spurious association of R1b with Iberian refugium.

But it doesn't mean that the entire concept was erroneous:

Association of three HG autosomal components - WHG, SHG and EHG - with those three refugia as shown in the map, seems probable. However, WHG were not R1b, but rather C1 (C-M130) and some subclades of I2.

The Balkan refugium, on the other hand, could be other subclades of I2, as well as I1.

This is true that a lot of HG (in this case rather EHG than WHG - EHG was quite different from WHG, because it was ANE-rich) was brought from the east by steppe people such as Yamnaya. But already before those migrations from the east, an increase of HG (WHG and SHG) could be observed in Middle and Late Neolithic. LeBrok argued that it was due to HG genes - especially their Y-DNA - being selected for. IMO that could be simply due to an increasing number of hunter-gatherers being assimilated into agricultural communities, and then exploding demographically, increasing in numbers (as farmers tend to do). If ~50 hunters learn how to farm, they will grow to ~1000 descendants in few generations.

As for HG ancestry - it seems to me that calling all of it WHG is already obsolete by now. ;)

We have learned by now, that there were at least three quite distinct types of HGs in Europe:

There were similarities between them, but also differences. EHG, for instance, was ANE-rich.

Both SHG and EHG were also lighter-pigmented than WHG. WHG were darker, if I remember correctly.

WHG probably had more of Aurignacian ancestry (see Y-DNA of Kostenki 14, and then La-Brana).

So we agree that the resurgence of HG ancestry in Middle and Late Neolithic was due to more and more hunters gradually learning how to farm. I have never claimed that it was a swift process without difficulties.

I'm sorry, I still think you're not seeing the subtlety of the distinctions. We do not yet have any evidence, even in the Middle and Late Neolithic, of bands of hunter gatherers looking at the neighboring farmers and deciding, wow, that looks like a great idea, and adopting farming as a community. It is always in the context of their being absorbed into a farming community, and with some degree of genetic admixture, at least so far.

I never said that h-g groups were incapable of farming. If nothing else, some of them could have been enslaved and forced to farm, which may have been the case with KOI, although if we look at the example of the American West, Australia, and the San, that very rarely works. They usually pine away or sicken or run away.

When the climate changed and they had absolutely no other option other than starvation, some of them might also have gone to farming communities and been absorbed. That happened in the American West as well.

Now, as I said, that may have changed under the Indo-Europeans, because the pastoralist life style may have been a better fit for them.

Ed. The proof is that after thousands of years, the MN and LN farmers were still 75% EEF, and it may indeed be that EEF = ENF.

"Missions varied enormously in their economic and religious success. Some could not support themselves; others developed fertile fields and vineyards and huge herds of cattle. Virtually all successful religious conversion was among sedentary Indians who were easier to control and more adaptable to agriculture and herding. The few attempts to convert such warlike nomads as the Apaches and Comanches failed dismally."http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/a...ons-us-history

This may be the critical distinction. If nomadic or semi-nomadic HGs had various itchy-feet type traits that suited that lifestyle then sedentary HGs may have lost some or all of them as part of the process of becoming sedentary. So nomadic types recruited/enslaved to be farmers might never settle but could if they were recruited as herders whereas HGs that were already sedentary might be able to fit in as farmers.

If correct then that leads to the interesting possibility that you might see different dynamics in regions where there were pre-existing sedentary HGs.

That's a useful line of speculation, ( i.e. that there were different results in different places depending on the lifestyle of the h-g ), but from what I remember, most of the h-g groups in Europe at the time of the arrival of the farmers were already mostly sedentary hunter-fisher gatherers, although with seasonal movements to different camps. The paleolithic mammoth hunters were long gone. Someone could check it out.

Still, the fact remains that if you remove all the mumbo-jumbo and slicing and dicing, this is the logic:

IF-

Barcin = ENF who went to Europe (the farmers who went to Europe from the Near East were like Barcin, as seems to be the case)

Barcin = EEF (perhaps only a few percent difference)

MN/LN = 75% EEF

Then, after thousands of years of cohabitation the farmers only picked up 25% of their ancestry from the h-g groups who were in Europe when they arrived. Yes?

So, either the h-g groups were extraordinarily small, and the farmers were breeding like rabbits, or most of the h-g groups still couldn't adapt and fled to places like far northeastern Europe and perhaps far northwestern Europe or to mountain refuges or whatever, only to slowly trickle in and be absorbed with climate change, and later a slightly larger group were absorbed by Indo-Europeans as stockmen or whatever.

I think we also have to consider that the Mission system was the product of a much later and more sophisticated civilization and belief system. It was a concerted effort by a very small group of elite men to "Christianize" and save the souls of the natives, as well as to "pacify" the regions. (The whole problem was that it was difficult, if not impossible, to recruit enough European families to these areas as settlers.)

The Neolithic societies may not have been able to manage such a scheme, nor may they have wanted or needed to do it. They came as a folk migration with their own women, and, as I said, they seem to have bred like rabbits. I've also always found it interesting how averse a good number of these societies were to the eating of fish. (very short sighted of them from a nutritional stand, or from the point of view of soil fertility for that matter) They do it in some areas, but not in most. Perhaps they associated it with hunter-fisher-gatherers. It seems like deliberate avoidance to me, as if these people and their food were "treif" or non-kosher.

Perhaps one also cant farm because of lack of grain or know how which in that age arrived only with genes. Dont think they had student exchange :)

I would not be able to either hunt or farm if someone told me to tomorrow. OK, I could because of google, but the point stays.

Just like farmers could not hunt or survive in Northern lands before quite late because lacked the local know how.

Very true; the farmers had to perhaps learn to supplement their diet with fish, and perhaps even more importantly, they couldn't colonize there until they had modified their crops for the new terrain and climate conditions.

If the internet permanently went down, most people in modern industrialized societies would starve because most people in such societies don't have a clue how to farm or hunt. We have some "survivalist" groups here, often based in rural areas. I'd be a great recruit for everything except the hunting...I've always left that to the men, although I can cook it once they "bag" it. Blame it on all those summers on my great-uncle's farm, and my father's dedication to his vegetable garden. When he retired it became a virtual truck farm and fruit orchard, and toward the end he was planning to put in a chicken run and rabbit hutch, and was trying to convince my mother that a few pigs and a cow or two might be a good idea. She wasn't having any of it. It was quite extraordinary to see this businessman undergo this metamorphosis into subsistence farmer. :)

Necessity is the mother of all inventions and I have no doubt that farmers became farmers as there was not enough game around in drier areas so one was pushed to new ideas how to be able to provide food for the tribe. If one is getting by killing Mammoths, dear and wild pig in areas that support a good breeding ground besides for all one would hardly be bothered to think to domesticate anything (except for dogs). The catch even was preserved longer due to colder climates, unlike warmer more southern zones where grain growing would have an advantage and preserves better then meat (unless cured)

(...) In order to ascertain the closest population group among northwestern Indians, we redrew the network of Roma haplotypes exclusively within the northwestern Indian variation (Fig. 3). It is highly revealing that the closest or matching haplotypes with the Roma haplotypes were found in scheduled caste and scheduled tribe populations, while the middle and upper caste haplotypes were more distant to the Roma haplotypes (Fig. 3). Scheduled castes and Scheduled tribes are the endogamous groups in India that are given a special status by the Government of India to uplift their social status (for more details, refer [47]). Historically, the assimilation of so-called tribals into the caste system generally did little to ameliorate the socio-economic barriers or enhance the marriageability of former outcastes to members of the middle or high castes. However their language and means of subsistence were often affected, e.g. assimilation to an Indo-Aryan language and the shift from foraging, hunting and fishing to a more sedentary existence. Not surprisingly, the genetic differences between scheduled tribes and scheduled castes are not found to be substantial [47]. On the basis of our findings, it is therefore most parsimonious to conclude that the genealogically closest patrilineal ancestors of the Roma were among the ancestors of the present scheduled tribes and scheduled caste populations of northwestern India. The genetic data analysed here for the first time provide strong population genetic support for the linguistic based identification of the ancestral Roma with the presumed aboriginal Doma of northwestern India and the Gangetic plain.

(...)

The name by which Roma designate themselves is Rroma (singular Rrom), whereby the double rr in Romani orthography represents a uvular ‘r’ [R] as opposed to an apical ‘r’ [r]. The autonym Rroma is held to be cognate with Doma, a collective term for the ancient aboriginal populations of the Indian subcontinent. Many Doma remained outcastes or tribals, whereas some were assimilated into the lower strata of the caste system by the Indo-European speaking Indians. (...)

Then, after thousands of years of cohabitation the farmers only picked up 25% of their ancestry from the h-g groups who were in Europe when they arrived. Yes?

I think that's the general pattern. The farmers spread everywhere they could farm and the HGs retreated to wherever was left with very little mixing until the borders were fixed.

What mixing there was after that point possibly being linked to how pastoral an area was i.e. more HG recruits in areas best suited to herding and less in areas best suited to crops.

I think that bit seems clear.

The question is if there was a resurgence in HG dna after this how it came about.

1. As above maybe the farmers recruited more HGs from the swamps/mountains to herd for them - perhaps as part of a climate related switch away from crops.

2. Some HGs in the periphery regions adapting e.g. the Ertobolle culture, leading to HGs becoming hybrid HG-farmers and a population resurgence that way.

3. A variation on option (1) where there is also no direct HG resurgence but a farmer population in a farmer/HG border region with a higher percentage of HG than usual having a population expansion for some reason.

I'm sorry, I still think you're not seeing the subtlety of the distinctions. We do not yet have any evidence, even in the Middle and Late Neolithic, of bands of hunter gatherers looking at the neighboring farmers and deciding, wow, that looks like a great idea, and adopting farming as a community. It is always in the context of their being absorbed into a farming community, and with some degree of genetic admixture, at least so far.

I never said that h-g groups were incapable of farming. If nothing else, some of them could have been enslaved and forced to farm, which may have been the case with KOI, although if we look at the example of the American West, Australia, and the San, that very rarely works. They usually pine away or sicken or run away.

When the climate changed and they had absolutely no other option other than starvation, some of them might also have gone to farming communities and been absorbed. That happened in the American West as well.

Now, as I said, that may have changed under the Indo-Europeans, because the pastoralist life style may have been a better fit for them.

Ed. The proof is that after thousands of years, the MN and LN farmers were still 75% EEF, and it may indeed be that EEF = ENF.

I rather agree, spite based upon little. By instance Blatterhöhle fishers-gatherers compared to same place agricultors OF THE SAME TIME show only 7/7 mtU5 (U5b for the deppest studied) when peasants show a mix of 5/8 H + 2/8 U5b + 1J (3H5, 1H1, 1H11, so not occidental mt-H as a whole).
It's true females/males imput in mixtures are not always balanced but it's a beginning...

Our communal and main guess wasn't right so far. Second guess was right. Full of G2a, and even one E. All typical farmers from Near East. Not even one R1b or R1a. However it is just from one location of vast territory, a cave and small sample base.

Last edited by LeBrok; 13-05-17 at 21:59.

Be wary of people who tend to glorify the past, underestimate the present, and demonize the future.

Our communal and main guess wasn't right so far. Second guess was right. Full of G2a, and even one E. All typical farmers from Near East. Not even one R1b or R1a. However it is just from one location of vast territory, a cave and small sample base.

The communal prediction for Globular was also incorrect, wasn't it? Vucedol too.

The communal prediction for Globular was also incorrect, wasn't it? Vucedol too.

I don't remember this one. The second one I started was about Maykop, and jury is still in.

Anyway, it is so weird that contemporary neighboring culture of also farmers is exclusively I2a! Either the small sample bias is very strong here, or these two cultures were strongly conservative, ethno-patriotic. ;) Considering the fact that Ukrainian samples of Cucuteni and Globular lived close by, though few hundred years apart.

There is of course possible population collapse and bottlenecking effect for farmers of Late Neolithic to explain that.

I don't remember this one. The second one I started was about Maykop, and jury is still in.

Anyway, it is so weird that contemporary neighboring culture of also farmers is exclusively I2a! Either the small sample bias is very strong here, or these two cultures were strongly conservative, ethno-patriotic. ;) Considering the fact that Ukrainian samples of Cucuteni and Globular lived close by, though few hundred years apart.

There is of course possible population collapse and bottlenecking effect for farmers of Late Neolithic to explain that.

What's interesting is that the Trypillian genomes tested are not pure EEF, but have substantial levels of WHG, EHG and Steppe (about 25% in total), and all samples possess all three admixtures in addition to EEF. The levels are quite similar to those of the Bronze Age Balkans. One Trypillian individual (I1927) has over 20% of Steppe admixture, and only just above 50% of EEF.

The Trypillian genomes greatly contrasts with Globular Amphora, which have almost only WHG (20-25%) and EEF (75-80%).

We only have a few sample from each culture, and it turned out that all the Trypillian Y-DNA was EEF (G2a and E1b1b) ad all the Globular Amphora Y-DNA was WHG (I2), but that is surely just a coincidence. The autosomal DNA shows that Trypillian people must have possessed also I2, R1a and R1b lineages. You just can't draw conclusions on Y-DNA frequencies based on five samples. It's actually far safer to do so based on autosomal DNA.

Also noteworthy, Trypillian genomes had more WHG than EHG or Steppe, while Chalcolthic Balkans genomes had substantial EHG but hardly any WHG or Steppe (except for I2181 and ANI163, who were recent Steppe invaders. Unfortunately ANI163's Y-DNA and mtDNA aren't mentioned, but I2181 belongs to Y-haplogroup R, although the coverage was too low to determine anything deeper).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?", Winston Churchill.

I'm yet to read this paper, so I was only wondering if these G2a farmers had Yamnaya mix, and they did have. Thanks for finding it out Maciamo.
In this case, it is just a matter of time finding Steppe and WHG haplogroups in North Cucuteni. BA Balkans is quite similar for first 7 samples to Cucuteni but 4 last ones are way richer in steppe. I wonder if they come from different locations.
I'll try to find out.

The two Admixture runs are very strange for some of the Balkan groups studied, depending on the k. It has to be investigated more thoroughly, especially when the samples are released. For some of them is it "steppe" or just CHG like ancestry added to local hg? For others is it just additonal WHG and/or EHG?

The two Admixture runs are very strange for some of the Balkan groups studied, depending on the k. It has to be investigated more thoroughly, especially when the samples are released. For some of them is it "steppe" or just CHG like ancestry added to local hg? For others is it just additonal WHG and/or EHG?

For C/T, I think some of these are up in the forest steppe.

It got to be the way they defined EHG here. Before that we didn't hear about EHG in Balkans. Perhaps we have enough ancient samples for scientists to coin common admixtures to measure samples. I don't mind if there is EHG in balkan hunter gatherers, I just don't want to change my mind set with every paper.

I'm yet to read this paper, so I was only wondering if these G2a farmers had Yamnaya mix, and they did have. Thanks for finding it out Maciamo.
In this case, it is just a matter of time finding Steppe and WHG haplogroups in North Cucuteni. BA Balkans is quite similar for first 7 samples to Cucuteni but 4 last ones are way richer in steppe. I wonder if they come from different locations.
I'll try to find out.

Ok, the samples of BA Balkans which are more like Cucuteni are from Early BA from Bulgaria. The samples with more steppe are from Late Neolithic from Croatia.

Ok, the samples of BA Balkans which are more like Cucuteni are from Early BA from Bulgaria. The samples with more steppe are from Late Neolithic from Croatia.

This makes complete sense. Old Neolithic/Chalcolithic cultures like Cucuteni-Trypillian and Varna in the eastern Carpathians and Balkans were densely populated and acted as bulwark against Steppe invasions. Therefore Steppe admixture levels in those regions are lower. EHG, WHG and Steppe admixtures in those regions probably progressed slowly over time by intermarriages with neighbouring HG and Steppe pastoralist populations.

The samples from Croatia could be seen as part of the large-scale migration from the Pontic Steppe to the Hungarian Plain, which was an ideal environment for cattle pastoralists and horse riders. I have explained in my R1b history, in agreement with what David Anthony wrote, that the early Steppe incursions into the Balkans were raiding and pillaging expeditionsthat caused the progressive decline of Old Europe, but didn't leave any major Steppe settlements. Steppe invaders only took over politically and set themselves up as the new rulers in local communities, so that Steppe lineages would principally show up in elite burials like in Varna.

The real Steppe migrations with their families, carts and herds followed the Danube until Hungary and northeast Croatia, then moved into Germany, Bohemia and western Poland to found the Unetice culture. Some of those who arrived early eventually continued west beyond Germany, reaching France and Britain by 2300 BCE, when Unetice started around Germany.

"The expansion of R1b people into Old Europe was slower, but proved inevitable. In 2800 BCE, by the time the Corded Ware had already reached Scandinavia, the Bronze Age R1b cultures had barely moved into the Pannonian Steppe. They established major settlements in the Great Hungarian Plain, the most similar habitat to their ancestral Pontic Steppes. Around 2500 BCE, the western branch of Indo-European R1b were poised for their next major expansion into modern Germany and Western Europe."

However the three Bronze Age Croatian individuals tested date from 1700 to 900 BCE, which is long after the Yamna-descended tribes passed through the Hungarian plain. Nevertheless some seem to have made their way south until southern Croatia (Veliki Vanik) and may have been the long lost tribe of the Illyrians. This is the first evidence we have of Indo-European lineages in Illyria prior to the Slavic migrations that replaced most of the male lineages by I2a-Din and R1a lineages. Unfortunately, only one of the three BA Croatian samples was male, so there is only one Y-DNA sample and it belongs to J2b2a-L283. It's possible that a later Steppe migration that the one that founded Unetice brought J2b2a to the Dinaric Alps. Anyway these three individuals were undeniably Steppe-admixed and the J2b guy possessed a typical Steppe mtDNA (I1a1) also found in Unetice.

Note that the sample with the highest Steppe admixture in the Balkans (I2163) is from Middle-Late Bronze Age Bulgaria (c. 1700 BCE) and belongs to R1a-S224. It is the only MLBA individual tested and he is contemporary to the Srubna culture, where he surely originated. This confirms that that Srubna was a predominantly R1a culture, as opposed to the earlier R1b-dominant Yamna culture and probably also Catacomb culture.

NB: It's just a detail, but the samples tested are from the Trypillian culture, not Cucuteni. Although they formed the same culture, Cucuteni normally refers to the part in NE Romania and Moldova, while Tripolye/Trypillia is the Ukrainian part.

It got to be the way they defined EHG here. Before that we didn't hear about EHG in Balkans. Perhaps we have enough ancient samples for scientists to coin common admixtures to measure samples. I don't mind if there is EHG in balkan hunter gatherers, I just don't want to change my mind set with every paper.